Musique Acoustique Machine

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Viviane Arnoux

Accordionist, vocalist, composer, arranger, producer of albums and musical projects.
Viviane Arnoux is one of the few French accordionists to have opened the way of her instrument to music from elsewhere. Her eclecticism and originality not only led her to create her own projects, but also to rub shoulders with great artists on stages around the world.
Encouraged by a singer mother and an accordionist grandfather, Viviane started the accordion at age 4, then took up the clarinet. At 12, she took her first steps on stage; 2 years later she won a national music theory prize. She reached the final of the Accordion Cup of France at 16.

Given this early success she left her university studies to become a musician, settling in Paris to take courses in improvisation, arrangement and composition with Richard Galliano CIM, then François Théberge at the IACP, through an internship with the National Jazz Orchestra.

At the same time, she taught music, was backed by the Hohner label, experienced the jazz, rock-cajun, Brazilian scenes … She turned to African rhythms when she met Ray Lema and took part in several of his projects.

Hugues Aufray noticed her and invited her to play on his album “Little Troubadour”, a prelude to 16 years of collaboration.

Since then, Viviane has traveled the world, exploring different fields of expression for her instrument, with internationally renowned artists (Africa: Sam Mangwana, Omar Pene, Zao, Kekele, Baba Djan, Bushman…; world: Abed Azrié, Georgian Legend, l’Attirail, I Muvrini…; France: Manau, Corinne, Thomas Pitiot, Céline Caussimon, the Ferrat project “C’est un Joli Nom, Camarade”, the Quebec musical “Sous les Ponts de Paris”).

Her career as a musician has also allowed her to accompany some big names in haute couture (Jean-Paul Goudes, Yves St-Laurent for the perfume “Paris”), in cinema (“La Promesse de l’Aube” , “Holly Motors”, “My Best Friend”, “Welcome to Les Rozes” the series “Boulevard du Palais”) and to get involved in multidisciplinary projects (Unity Theater, La NEF, L’Eolienne).

Since 2012, Viviane has been composing and recording in her studio for her personal projects (“Papa Noel et Viviane A”), for the publisher Kapagama / Universal the album (“Retro french Songs 2”) and for Musique Acoustique Machine projects.

François Michaud
Violinist, violist, composer, arranger, producer of albums and musical projects, violin, jazz and improvisation teacher.
François Michaud is a free musician, freed from classical and stereotypical formats of jazz. His audacity, persistence and collective spirit have enabled him to develop projects in which music is reinvented to make it accessible to all.
François is from a family of québécois globetrotting musicians. He studied at many conservatories in the world : Casablanca, Rabat, Libreville, Quebec, Gatineau. At 13, he fell in love with improvisation and decided, after high school, to settle in France to start his career as a jazz violinist, passionate about the stage and teaching.

He co-founded his first creative acoustic jazz groups like the Cordacor ‘trio (3 albums, 7 years of touring), and the IXI Quartet (2 albums, 8 years of touring), guided by the conviction that the practice of the violin and the viola can flourish in a much broader register than the role of soloist to which it is often relegated. At the same time, he recorded and / or shared the stage with french jazz musicians (Louis Sclavis, Riccardo del Fra, Latcho Drom, Dominique Pifarély, Antoine Hervé, Serge Krief, Didier Petit, Denis Colin, Pablo Cueco, Bruno Girard, François Castiello …).

In variety shows, he was also invited to participate in the projects of international artists (Artango, Matmatah, Abed Azrié, Adamo, Paddy Kelly, Thomas Pitiot, Francis Lemarque, Celtic Sailors, Thomasi, Mama Kaya, Tavagna…). In cinema, he recorded for feature films “Trilogy”, “Pour Rire”, “La promesse de l’aude”, “Les 11 Commandements”, and 2 TV series (France Television) … In Theatre, he composed and performed the music for two plays “Ma Dernier Moisson” (Théâtre du Pain Perdu) and “La Miette” (Compagnie Les Invisibles)…

In the educational field, in addition to leading a 15-day internship for 40 musicians in Yaoundé, and the management of the Loué (Sarthe) music school, François taught in L’Élastique à Musique (Le Mans), CMT (Ris-Orangis), IACP (Paris) and the Club Musical Scriabine (Paris). Since 2004, he has been teaching violin and jazz improvisation at the ATLA school (Paris).

Very sensitive to the “new musette-jazz” movement carried, among others, by Marcel Azzola and Richard Galliano, he developed projects with accordion, first as a duet, then with variable geometry for Musique Acoustique Machine